Making a Good First Impression

Making a Great First Impression!
It takes just a quick glance, maybe three seconds, for someone to evaluate you when you meet for the first time. In this short time, the other person forms an opinion about you based on your appearance, your body language, your demeanor, your mannerisms, and how you are dressed. People appraise your visual and behavioral appearance from head to toe. They even assess your grooming and accessories – watch, handbag, briefcase. Within only three seconds, you make an indelible impression. You may intrigue some and disenchant others.
Once the first impression is made, it is virtually irreversible.
The process works like this:
    • If you appear to be of comparable business or social level, you are considered suitable for further interaction.
    • If you appear to be of higher business or social status, you are admired and cultivated as a valuable contact.
    • If you appear to be of lower business or social standing, you are tolerated but kept at arm's length.
    • If you are in an interview situation, you can either appear to match the corporate culture or not, ultimately affecting the outcome.
It is human nature to constantly make these appraisals, in business and social environments. You may hardly have said a word, however once this three-second evaluation is over, the content of your speech will not change it. When you make the best possible first impression, you have your audience in the palm of your hand. When you make a poor first impression, you lose your audience’s attention, no matter how hard you scramble to recover it.
With every new encounter, you are evaluated and yet another person’s impression of you is formed. These first impression can be nearly impossible to reverse or undo, making those first encounters extremely important, for they set the tone for the all the relationships that follows.
So, whether they are in your career or social life, it’s important to know how to create a good first impression....